ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by dialing the metaphysical level down a bit. Transcendence needn’t always be a grandly metaphysical project involving gods and devils, heavens and hells, war and peace, bliss and chaos. In Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, each of the title characters has the opportunity for transcendence, not through heroism in war (despite the ever-present backdrop of the Trojan War) or through contact with a god (despite the role of an unnamed god of love in the plot), but through love and concern for the other. The famous, or infamous, failure of this couple to bridge the chasm between them is, in my view, largely the fault of Troilus—whose name, “Little Troy,” in the context of the siege of Troy, should give any reader of Chaucer a clue not only as to Troilus’ ultimate fate, but also to the nature of his character.
